This specification relates generally to a system and method for detecting anatomic landmarks in a three-dimensional image volume.
Imaging technologies such as computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enable medical practitioners to obtain a three-dimensional (3-D) image of a patient's body, facilitating a more accurate diagnosis of a patient's condition. However, analysis of a 3-D image volume by a specialist for the purpose of identifying organs or other landmarks can be time consuming; therefore, there is an ongoing need for automatic detection of landmarks in 3-D image volumes. Many existing systems and methods for detecting landmarks in 3-D image volumes use landmark detectors which are trained to identify a desired landmark in a 3-D image volume based on training data. Based on an analysis of the training data, the landmark detector develops rules enabling it to examine a given object within a 3-D image volume and generate a value representing a probability that the object is the desired landmark.